Apparatus for making concrete articles.



CHARLES BENSON MARQUESS, OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA.

APPARATUS FOR MAKING CONCRETE ARTICLES.

1,281,407. Original application filed March 8, 1917,

1917, Serial No. 162,302. Renewed August To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES Henson MARQUESS, a citizen of the United States, residing at Minneapolis, in the county f Hennepin and State of Minnesota, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Aparatus for Making Concrete Articles, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to apparatus for making articles of concrete or of similar cementitious material. .An important application of these improvements is in the construction of batte vaults and the like, will be more speci cally described and 1llustrated in the construction of such vaults, although the invention is not limited thereto.

Heretofore it has been common ractice in the construction of battery vau ts and the like to prepare molds or forms, exterior and interior, onforming to the shape of the proposed article to be manufactured, and, after locating reinforcing metal 1n the space between the molds, to pour such space full of the plastic or semi-liquid mortar. Inasmuch as one of the prime requisites of battery vaults is water-tightness, it has been necesmass in order to obtain even moderately satisfactory results, thoroughly to ram or puddle the mortar so as to Work it around the bars and drive out, so far as possible, arr which has become entrapped during the process of pouring. The densit of the concrete has been contingent upon t e thoroughness with which the next-above-mentioned work was done, and, since it is very diflicult to work around the intricate and complicated cage of reinforcing metal with a ramming or puddling tool it frequently happens that a quite porous form of concrete results. 0

The most practical cementltious material for such vault construction is formed from Portland cement, sand, and water. As the plastic mass when formed beglns at once to harden, and as any disturbance of the mass while it is setting results in concrete deficient in strength, it is of the greatest importance that the walls be formed with the utmost expedition. In the older methods of form ng suchwalls a very material amount o f'time elapses and a great deal of disturbance of the takes place from the time of the add tion of water to the cement and sand unt l the mortar is ap lied in final pos1t1on, and it has been impossi 1e, according-to the hitherto sary,

Specification of Letters Patent.

and

Patented Oct. 15, 1918.

Serial No. 153,236. Divided and this application filed April 16,

8, 1918. Serial No. 248,997.

processes, to provide a vault of satisfactory strength and density.

Reference is directed to my co-pending application, Serial No. 153,236, filed March 8, 1917, entitled Concrete articles, of which this application is a division, and also to my co-pending application, Serial No. 162,301, filed Aprll 16, 1917, entitled Methods of making concrete articles, wherein the present apparatus is also illustrated and described and details of specific vault construction and method of making same are more definitely set forth than will be necessary herein in view of those disclosures. A

The principal object of the present'improvements is to provide simple and effective means for making battery vaults, and other concrete or plastic articles of a kind suitable to be formed in connection with such apparatus, cheaply and expeditiously, while at the same time forming 'a structure of great density and strength. Other objects and advantages will appear hereinafter.-

In the accompanyin drawings which form a art of this specification, I have illustrated t ese improvements in simple form as employed in the art of making battery vaults and the like, Figure 1 being a side elevation of the structure, the track device and driving pinion being shown in medial vertical section, and Fig. 2 being a top plan and partly sectional view of the device of Fig. 1 as on the line 22 thereof, the vault of Fig. 1 being omitted in Fig. 2.

Upon a suitable support 30 I position an annular metallic track device 31 having an the track 33 having a gear 34 integral therewith. The track 33 is rigidly secured to the horizontal platform 36, circular in the form illustrated, and provided at its circumference with a twopiece ring of flat metal 37 clamped upon the support 36 by bolts 38 whereby this ring 37 may readily be positioned and removed. Meshing with the track gear 33 is the pinion 40, secured upon a shaft 41 rotatable in bearings 42 and 43, a bevel gear 44 being also carried by this shaft. Upon the driving shaft 46 there is a bevel pinion 47 meshing with the gear 44, and also the bevel gear 48 meshing with the pinion 49 upon the-screw shaft 50. A cross-head 52 ing, form or core 25 is February 14,

54 and is moved in vertical direc ions bythe screw shaft 50 in threaded engagement with the cross-head 52, as shown in Fig. 2. A nozzle 57 is secured readily removably upon the bracket 52, as by a clamping strap 58, the nozzle being directed horizontally substantially toward the axis of rotation of the base 36. To the nozzle 57 there is secured a flexible pipe 60 adapted to contain a proper mixture of cement and sand carried to the nozzle 57 by air pressure, and also the flexible pipe 61 adapted to deliver continuously to the stream of cement and sanda proper quantity of water. The guides 53 and 54: may suitably be supported upon a bracket 65 which also contains bearings 66 and 67 for the driving shaft 46, this shaft rotating also in a bearing 68 carried by the support 69. The guides 53 and 54 are also supported by a fixed piece 7 07 having a bearing 71 in which the screw shaft 50 rotates. The nozzle 57 and pipes 60 and 61 areelements of cement gun apparatus and are sufficientl well understood to require no detailed escription here. In this connection, however, reference may be had to 1911, to C. E. Akeley.

It is clear that when rotative power is applied to the shaft 46 the horizontal support 36 will be rotated upon the balls 32, and that the nozzle 57 will simultaneously be raised or lowered through the rotation of the screw shaft 50.

In forming the vault illustrated, suitable reinforcing elements for the base 10, as cross bars 15 and 16, are preferably placed and secured so that they are temporarily held in their ultimate positions, whereupon the space inside the mortarcontaining ring 37 is filled level to the top thereof with a mixture of cement, sand and water (or other cementitious material), either by filling in by hand in the ordinary way or by means of the nozzle 57, which may readily be detached from the crosshead 52 for spraying the mixture over the platform by hand.

After the base 10 is formed, the inner linpositioned directly on top of the base and is carefully centered so as to make its axis coincide with the axis of rotation of the base 10. The steel or iron reinforcing parts consisting of the bars 18, 20 and 21 secured together so as to form a rigid frame-work, is placed around the lining, form or core 25, the lower ends of the bars 18 being pressed downward into the soft mortar of the bottom wall or base 10. The form, core or lining 25 may be secured to the metallic framework, as by Wiring, if it is of such thin material as to require. it, but, if of relatively stiff material, such as roofing felt or fiber, as soon as the frame-work is thus positioned and suitably adjusted as to its desired concentric arrangement with the y from the Patent No. 984,254 of memo? core the operation of applying the ceme'm titious material may be begun. ,Other kinds of cores or forms against which the material is to be projected may be employed.

The cement and sand forced through the pipe 60 by air pressure at a high rate of travel unites with a suitable supply of Water pipe 61 and the plastic cement issues from the nozzle in the form of-a jet 62 which impinges upon the core or form 25, adhering to it and finally covering the metallie frame-work. The operation is begun preferably by directing the jet 62 against the lining 25 at the bottom of the side wall there of, or close to the ring 37, the base, core and frame-work rotating the While. The cemen der way and without any disturbance of the 1 applied particles or mass;

ile it is possible so to proportion the rates of rotation of the support 36 and the travel of the nozzle 57 that the desired thickness of cement can be applied in a single coat, ordinarily =1 prefer to make the coats less thick and'apply two or more there of to obtain the desired thickness. After forming the Walls the material is allowed to harden, after which thearticle can readily be removed from the horizontal support 36,

it being preferable first to remove the ring 37. A feature of advantage resides in the fact that a plurality of such apparatuses for forming'such articles may be operated by a limited number of workmen in the simultaneous construction of a considerable number of the articles being made, thus greatly reducing the time and cost of the output.

Numerous modifications may be made of r the apparatus illustrated and described without departing from the spirit of the present invention, and I contemplate all such changes as come Within the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A mechanism for forming articles of cementitious material comprising in combination a horizontal support mounted to r0- tate on a vertical axis, a nozzle adjacent to said support and adapted to discharge cementitious material substantially toward the axis of rotation thereof, means for rotating said support, and means for simultaneously moving said nozzle progressively in a direction substantially parallel with'the axis of rotation of said support..

2. A mechanism for forming articles of cementitious material comprising in combimemo? nation, a horizontal platform, an annular track horizontally disposed carried by said platform, a second annular track opposing said first mentioned track, rolling devices between said tracks, a nozzle mounted to move in. a substantially vertical direction adjacent to saidplatform, means for so moving said nozzle, means for conveying cementitious material under pressure to said nozzle, and means for rotating said platform on said rolling devices.

5, A mechanism for forming articles of cementitious material compnsing in combinozzle,

nation, a horizontal platform, means for rotating said platform on a substantially verti- Cally disposed, a movable member slidably mounted on said guide, said nozzle being carried by said movable member, means including a rotatable screw shaft substantially parallel with said guide for moving said and'means, for rotating said screw shaft.

CHARLES HENSON MARQUESS. 

